I pulled these guidelines together from a number of different sources with the aim of creating an Avlis-relevant guideline that had helpful tips for people of all levels of discussion experience/skill as well as rules of fair play for when topics get heated.

I was surprised how much I learned looking this stuff up and I'm excited to share it.

For example, the goal of any of our discussions is hopefully to be constructive, but that can be really hard, especially in dead horse or circular topics. So, I want to reframe the goal of discussions this way: when it seems like a thread is not being constructive, focus your posts on learning everything you can about other people's positions. Even if a topic fizzles out, you and others still gain and the people you disagree with like you all the more.Tturns out disagreements had in respectful ways are good for the group.

Regarding problem areas, my hope is to stop 50% of problem triggers at the start. I think that would change the tone of a ton of the conversations we have, helping things stay on track and letting us talk about tricky issues in much more effective ways. This is super important because even with great guidelines, controversial topics are still hard to talk about. There are no trigger warnings or safe spaces here. Real discussions done in proper ways will still make you anxious, wound up, pissed off or other relevant feelings, however, sticking to these rules will keep your attention on the topic and not the people and will help the discussion get the most out of you.

Before I just post this up, I wanted to invite everybody to give it a read and share their thoughts. Pros/Cons, things that could be reworded, things that are on crack, clarifications, whatever. Feel free to disagree with me, feel free to disagree with each other. Feel free to get offended and express it. The only rule is, you have to use the rules below…

I'll leave this to chat about for 1 week from this post.

Also… it’s a rough enough draft that I haven't settled on formatting and all my grammar are isn't not quite straight. Be forgiving.

Whatever you have to say, say it like you would say it to their faceRespect the human on the other side, including the thickness of their skin. Then lighten up. Much of what bothers you about a person or topic is probably worth blowing off because Avlis people get along really well in person even when they disagree on here. It's the nature of using forums, as is the ease with which we can treat people much more poorly than we would in person.

DO's

Follow this guideline:(1) Read the title and first post super carefully.(2) Catch up on the thread BEFORE posting(3) Start with these three elements: - Answer the question "What do I think?" - Answer "Why do I think this?" - Say or Ask what you wish you knew or what problems you see.(4) Check for the things below(5) Hit submit

Bring something unique to the discussionIf you have something to add, please add it. If your view has been expressed, don't. No need to +1, lol, *bump* etc. This means its OK if a poll has 30 votes and 3 replies if those 3 replies cover most views. The idea is to talk about the things and try to keep it concise and easy to follow. This also helps moderators immensely.

Share your knowledge. Voice your opinions. Ask lots of questions.Whatever your knowledge and experience is, bring it to the table. Ask other people for clarifications on theirs own ideas. Ask questions until you understand. Repeat: Ask questions! As many as you need. This is the way of the Sage.

Keep it short and clear.Short posts with minimal quotes get more reads and replies. Long posts and quotes detract from readability and therefore from the discussion, so do not quote anything more than the minimum you need to make your point.

Stay on TopicNo thread derailing. When it happens let's deal with it in better ways. Get somebody (like the derailers) to start a new topic, or in the case of a personal discussion, take it to PMs or IRC. Anybody can make this nudge, "hey guys we're getting off track can you take that to the side, now, let's pick this back up with …" but if things go sideways a moderator can step in.

Pay attention to your level of distressIf something bothers you, deal with it like an adult. Based on severity: 1) Lighten up (rule 0). 2) Talk it out on the side, in PMs/IRC 3) report it. Keep all such dealings to these standards.

Help your NeighborWe want people to feel welcome posting, and we all have different levels of experience with Avlis topics and forum communication, so we need to help each other out where Do's and Don't's and questions are concerned, including people who we strongly disagree with.

For thread starters:

Know your forum.General Discussion: All Avlis related discussionsNWN Discussionsn: All NWN/Technical related discussionsRandom Discussions: Just about everything elseAsk the Team: Get team responses. Not for discussions. Discussions go in GD.Rants: Turning up the heat is more important than discussion.

Set a time limit on your own discussions.A week. Put it on the post. Exact deadline is Your call, but draw it to a conclusion instead of letting it die. Its OK to go longer if the discussion is still going.

Facilitate your discussionIt will go better if you ask questions of people to help draw out more responses. Feel free to get a friend or two to help.

DON'T's

Troll or post Flame Bait From one source: "Be polite, leave out offensive language, and do not be confrontational for the sake of it. Do not troll (provocative posting with the aim of upsetting someone or eliciting an angry response) other participants". Again, respect the thickness of their skin, also consider topic choice, timing, other matters of taste. A good place to start: if you think that Micah will think your post is trolling, it is.

Flame WarSometimes a strong, semi-tactless, emotional response meant to provoke some emotion others can be useful to put a little heat on the discussion. For the most part, people put too much heat or cross other lines and it starts back-and-forth and wrecks discussions. Keep the frequency and intensity under control and appropriate for the forum. No back-and-forth. If you feel compelled to respond, you can reply but don't flame the flamer. If you really need to turn up the heat on a topic, your thread/post belongs in Rants.

Shame, deride, humiliate, insult, libel...... violate privacy, abuse or any synonyms or related concepts. This includes direct and indirect attacks, snipes, allusions, and so on. From what I have been seeing In 2017, this behavior is the single worst thing any of us can to do to our fellow community members. It is time to recognize this and move beyond.

PanicAgain, this is no competition. It's also not a democracy. Polls are surveys, the discussions that follow can be very informative, but if you feel like you're being dragged into a conversation (see flame bait above) remember even quality controversial topics are hard to talk about. You don't have to step in and if you feel provoked you don't have to defend your honor. You can always come back around later, and please do. Your thoughts are welcome.

I'm still working out Moderator protocols. These guidelines are going to become rules and people who are repeat offenders will have to be managed in some way (I was hoping the forums had a mute button, but they don't). The moderators will have to intervene, but I hope it isn't often. If we keep stomping on these guidelines we're just hurting each other as well as every fifteen minutes mods spend managing a thread is fifteen minutes we're not spending doing something more valuable. So help guide each other in discussions, and for Mikon's sake, keep things concise. Unlike this post.

I'm not quite sure why this has to be a thing. As far as I've seen it's a couple of individuals who aren't able to handle a normal conversation, and feel threatened by most everything they perceive as being about them. Slamming more rules into place isn't a fix, apart from just finding a way to make the playerbase smaller.

darjth

<Grunt> "Vesdrac 25:17.... the path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by ME." *keels*

Do we really need sweeping rules to guide how we talk on the boards, has the dialogue really been that bad? How about just the simple ideas of "don't be an asshole", and "don't conflate differentiating opinions with personal attacks".

There will always be heated topics and discussions, but most of the time they are productive to the community. The few times they go beyond that, we have DMs and moderators that can and should handle the situations.

If you have something to add, please add it. If your view has been expressed, don't. No need to +1, lol, *bump* etc. This means its OK if a poll has 30 votes and 3 replies if those 3 replies cover most views. The idea is to talk about the things and try to keep it concise and easy to follow. This also helps moderators immensely.

Specific to this, I think quoting a long ass post, only to add "+1" is stupid (one of my big petpeeves on any boards). Do you really agree with EVERYTHING in the post you just quoted? I doubt it, and if you do, have the curtesy to write: "That was a good post Birbag! I share your views."

But when it comes to not replying because your viewpoint might be covered, is something I completely disagree with. I don't think you should ever feel that you shouldn't post your thoughts on a matter, just because someone else posted something you largely agree with. Moderators shouldn't care about that, they should only moderate when people get out of hand - i.e. posting personal attacks and being assholes (as I mentioned above).

It looks like we do and it's good read to refresh anything that might apply to you.

Like my personal distaste to individuals posts and the way they conduct themselves. I need to refrain from personal attacks because in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't achieve anything and it's not right. Weather they deserve it or not... It's not right.

So I welcome this thread and there is so there is wisdom and guidance.

Silk wrote:I don't know, I think flinging poo in a catapult could be pretty damn effective.I know if I was on the battlefield and I got hit by a pile of shit... I'd probably go home.

But Daaaaaaad! All I wanted to know was how to use the Preview button!

I find that to be a crucial part of the process. Preview your post and read it slowly. First time through, try your best to correct egregious grammatical errors that make it a chore to read or borderline unreadable (maybe even copy-and-paste it into something that has a correct-feature to make suggestions). Second time through, read it for content and make sure it says what you want it to say. And third time, read it for tone. Is this the way I want to come across? Ask yourself "Is this something people can constructively discuss?" "Have I left out something to consider?" "Am I being open to suggestions?" "Do I think I see where the problem is, or am I becoming part of the problem?"

Moredo wrote:But when it comes to not replying because your viewpoint might be covered, is something I completely disagree with. I don't think you should ever feel that you shouldn't post your thoughts on a matter, just because someone else posted something you largely agree with. Moderators shouldn't care about that, they should only moderate when people get out of hand - i.e. posting personal attacks and being assholes (as I mentioned above).

This is 100% right. Very few threads are polls, and I have zero point zero problem with someone expressing themselves even if most of what they say has been said before. That's why these threads get started - to hear what people have to say. How difficult is it as a moderator or just a general reader to say "oh, sounds like something Birbag already said, I can spend my time policing someone else's post?"

And has the level of incivility really exploded to the point that we need rules for how to post on the forums beyond

1) No personal attacks2) See rule 1

I don't see it, frankly. It's about the same as it's always been, with one or two people getting overly bent or having a persecution complex. And even they should be allowed to say so, as long as they adhere to Rules 1 and 2 above, without fear of being edited, warned, or watchlisted.

Maybe we should start a new anti-censorship movement: Board Posts Matter!

There will always be people around who will try to antagonize/troll other members, be it in public or by PM, and I think those individuals should be treated on a case-by-case basis depending on both the severity of what's been said, and how many times the infractions happen. I like to think/hope that the majority of us are all grown-up enough to treat each other reasonably, even if we don't agree on the subject matter, and I hope, respect each other's opinion.

I think we've been around as a community long enough that after 15 years, we really don't need a massive manual on how to treat each other. I like what we have already as noted on the wiki:

Forum Etiquette

More informal than other player guidelines, the forum etiquette can be summarized by the common sense rule. This etiquette is an informal set of guidelines with as goal to make it more enjoyable to read the forums, and is quite small.

I too, think the majority of our community does try to have honest straight forward discussions regarding conflicts and this sounds an awful lot like trying to create rules for the outliers instead of the majority. It also sounds to me an awful lot like stepping on the slippery slope of censorship.

I also feel that if I can't somehow indicate I agree or don't agree with someone's statements, then I'm just part of the 'silent majority' and no one will know how that majority feels about a subject. I feel like not speaking up can cause more problems then speaking up - even if sometimes you are not so good at doing it.

If you don't tell me how you feel, and I can't tell you how I feel, how do we have a chance to negotiate?

Last edited by silverfields2 on Fri Sep 08, 2017 12:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I guess I'm going to be breaking guidelines already, because Moredo and darjth already summed up my response pretty well.

This community has existed for 15+ years. Most of us are in our 30s and 40s and beyond now. Nobody is new to the internet or forums. I've seen way more heated shit happen on these forums in years past and the community survived just fine. I'm not sure why we now suddenly need paragraphs of rules on how to speak to each other, since you say these will indeed become rules and not just guidelines.

All you achieve is to stifle honest discussion when people feel like they have to walk on eggshells. I've been in communities with rules like this. Instead of fostering a family/community atmosphere, it usually just makes the frustration with issues escalate into something way worse than it might have originally been.

I see no reason that forum moderators should now be involved with steering forum conversations like this was high school debate club. Like Mo said, save the mod stick for the truly egregious stuff, of which I really don't think there has been all that much. Or perhaps try to understand why someone is frustrated instead of just slapping them down for incorrect tone.

While I personally always enjoy a lesson in civility, I am not sure it is needed. It is a tense communication time on Avlis and it is not always so salty and I hope will not always be this way. Plus too many rules and points, people will not read them and claim ignorance. Plus it is too subjective. Flame-bait to one person is another's well thought out post on something like crafting or the death planes.

I mean, post it up as a guideline for sure but maybe not a hard and fast rule post.

That said. I am not sure these are posted anyway but forum etiquette is my jam.

Rule 0

Whatever you have to say, say it like you would say it to their face (while holding a small, innocent child).

I guess I'm out of the loop and haven't read any of the posts that are so horrible lately.

In general, I will say that most every forum I've used has a use/etiquette policy. Some are more legalese, others are at the "Rule 0: be respectful" level.

I would like to think that we could get by with minimalist rules, like Kat listed. Long rules will not be read. The only thing I would add to her list is to extend rule 0 or 1 to include: "If you are riled up or angry, sleep on it. Come back tomorrow and post if you still feel like it.".

One of my biggest pet peeves with forums/chat/social media is that people have a hard time clearly saying what they mean and the perspective they are coming from. Is the comment sarcasm? Is the comment intentionally hurtful? Is the poster oblivious and doesn't realize the comment can be taken differently than intended?

I also think that if someone makes an asshole post, that they should be called out directly, instead of deleting the post. "Why did you say that?", "That's really mean!", "We don't allow personal attacks on this forum!", "You need to apologize.", etc. First, this shows everyone that you are watching. It shows that they are out of line. It shows the one being attacked, that others are going to stand up for them. And, if the "attacker" wrote something that everyone is mis-interpreting, they have a chance to respond, in public.

Micah, I appreciate the time that had to have been spent hunting down all the sources, the time spent reading and collating your thoughts into a package all in the hopes of making the forums a better place for all of us, and perhaps giving us all a little lesson in civility. With all that said I still have to concur with Kat, Xalia, SF2, Dashdot, Surfer69 & Moredo.

I really don't see how this is such a huge thing that it needs this sort of intercession at this point. I'm especially in agreement with Kat's response, which pares down paragraphs of guidelines no one is going to fully read or remember into a few concise lines that essentially say the exact same thing.

As xalia put it

This community has existed for 15+ years. Most of us are in our 30s and 40s and beyond now.

I'll be the first to admit that now, as I am sneaking up on 60, that I am often in "Get off my lawn, you punk kids" mode. I am also adult enough to not take that to a place I come for entertainment. I think the vast - VAST - majority of my fellow forum dwellers are the same.

Lycanthropy wrote:Are these rules necessary? Has a case been made to prove it? If we accept that a case can definitively be made, do we actually have any input on these rules?

I believe there has been a case. It's why I've been posting what I've been posting.

I'm in a very difficult position and it has had consequences to online relationships old and new. It doesn't matter in the end, I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

None of the recent threads have been aimed at me and I am (was) a good DM. I did my very best for the community. Even with my first child who's 11 months old now and my wife was ill for three months of Freya's life with pancreaitus but I DM'ed. So I wasn't certainly doing it for me, I had responsibility to the players who I was DMing for and trying to be available for everyone. That's why perhaps I've taken alot of this to heart and also maybe why I can't be a DM. So with your 125 players roughly left, that's one less player wanting to be a DM. That's my fault no one else's.

I see alot of professional posts here, I'm just not as clever online and it's always been my weakness online posting. I should really keep off. I'm better face to face but sadly this is a online community. About 80% I believe of all misunderstandings or points of view can be dealt with a cold pint and a chat.

So this thread I believe was done with the right intentions off the back of some posts recently that have been with an agenda, including one of mine, which I sow the error of my way and deleted it.

I'm all for opinions, I'm an opinionated person and have passion for Avlis. But there is ways and means to do it... There is a person behind that keyboard.

If anything good can come from this thread is a better awareness for each other.

Game on.

Xeo

Silk wrote:I don't know, I think flinging poo in a catapult could be pretty damn effective.I know if I was on the battlefield and I got hit by a pile of shit... I'd probably go home.

Lycanthropy wrote:It's interesting to me that these were trailed as "guidelines" which are up for discussion. The buried lede, however, is here:

I'm still working out Moderator protocols. These guidelines are going to become rules

Are these rules necessary? Has a case been made to prove it? If we accept that a case can definitively be made, do we actually have any input on these rules? After all:

It's also not a democracy.

Attitudes like this worry me. I think this is all unnecessary.

+2

Just because, +3!

I really appreciate the comments made so far, they are exactly the sorts of things that I have been looking for.

Please keep them coming. I'll post some comments tomorrow. I do have two questions though,

Lyc, Orl, the +1 crowd, what about that statement worries you? Why?

I can't speak for anyone else, but perhaps it's because nobody wants to see an Avlis that looks and feels like a dictatorship. Piling on rules to micro manage and monitor interactions where it's never been necessary before does this. Reminding people again that it's 'not a democracy' does this.

Couching it in friendlier language and inviting 'discussion' doesn't make this seem more like a move made in good faith. More like the 'discussion' part is put there to humor the children and make them feel like they have some say.

This feels like the community is being told that we aren't trusted anymore and need a parental figure to dictate to us. Since we're all adults...I imagine this sits poorly with most.

Micah wrote:Lyc, Orl, the +1 crowd, what about that statement worries you? Why?

I think the proper question is what about that statement doesn't worry you. To me, it speaks to a preference to rule over the group one is supposedly part of by saying he's above it. What's the point in any of us giving the benefit of our heartfelt and carefully considered opinions on the matter if they're all just woodchips to feed the fire of command?

On the other hand, I'm pretty clear on this being far from a democracy, since

1) No one seems to have a say on who's "in charge" other than those who proclaim themselves to be.2) We're allowed to contribute to an important discussion all we want, as long as we acquiesce to the notion that it's all pointless because "rules will be made" by the Powers That Be.3) The price of dissent is banishment.

Last I checked, there was most definitely another name for that kind of system. I bet most people here - few of whom are the children they're being treated as - know exactly what it is.

Orleron wrote:I've played on a lot of multi-player media. If I had to fill out an application for Avlis, my online experience section would be this:

JediMudHexOnyxMedieviavarious other MUD's for short periods of time, mostly DIKU'sUltima OnlineDiablo (ha, yes I played)Starwars GalaxiesNWN

Really I was big into MUD's. My freshman year of college, I MUDed myself from a 3.4 to a 3.0, which took a lot of work for me because I was practically a straight A-B+ student all my life before that.

I belonged to many communities in the games above, and in each one I always saw the same thing: the community gets torn apart by the same old upheavals, time and time again. There were two kinds of upheaval really. The player-caused kind, and the admin-caused kind. Either way, one or both of those existed in every community I was in. Every single time, the fights were over the same problems on both sides, yet each community acted like it was the first time it ever happened on the planet. I was always thinking, wtf? Doesn't anyone build a community with experience learned from these guys??

I'm happy to say that I was very successful in ridding this place of Admin-caused problems from early on, by using what I learned from the other place. These are the kinds of problems where people do things like fight over code, recognition, and other ego-related things within the team. That really doesn't happen within our team because we share everything and we screen the people that we let onto the team to make sure they gel well with the ones who are already there. It works beautifully, and I'd like to think that we have pretty good control over it's stability. Lucky for you!

Ah, excellent, so what about the players? The players are quite a bit harder to teach. It's not hard to see why. They are way more numerous than team members, and new ones are always coming in who go through a learning curve within the community. No blame there. It's all good.

But what makes a good server, i.e. one that doesn't fall apart because the players whine it into oblivion or destroy it in other ways? I go by what I've experienced. Player arguments are always the same:

* John Doe's character can do more than mine, and I've been here longer

* John Doe's class can do more than mine, and I think that all the classes (especially MY class) should be more balanced/powerful/etc.

* This server sucks because people get griefed (Luckily not our problem here.)

* This server has an abundance/deficiency of Class/Race XXX

* Feature A is killing the game by doing B

* John Doe is not playing the way I (or my guild) wants him to play

* My guild is pissed off because this other guild did XXXX

and the list goes on.

Pretty much every recurring thread on these boards fits one of those above categories. I knew this stuff going in to making Avlis a NWN PW. My intention was and still is to make a server that does not get torn apart by any of those above issues. I've been largely successful at it too, but not always due to help from our most vocal players.

How did I get around those things above? I decided to focus on other things. Avlis has a vision, as the team calls it. Our goal, as a team, is to make Avlis according to the vision. I figured, correctly, that if we concentrate on the vision more than worrying about these silly ideas above, we would get somewhere. It's the ideas above that kill servers. More accurately, it's trying to FIX the ideas above that kill them. They can't be fixed. No one has done it. If someone had, then why isn't everyone playing on their server?

So that's what I wanted to say. A good server is made from experience. My experience tells me that dealing with those issues is like the Dark Side of the Force. Once you set down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. I refuse to do it, time and again. If you as a player want to post stuff in relation to the things I listed above, you are free to, of course. But remember that by doing so, you are not "helping the team". You are contributing to the death of Avlis, really. That death is of course a long ways off, we hope. But you are in effect speeding its arrival by doing things like that.

The Avlis Team knows what it is doing. We have a plan. You can stay and bask in our plans. Or you can go to another server. We totally respect either decision. The point is that we do this for FUN, and not necessarily to serve you, the players. Service happens, and we enjoy it when it does. But it is not our only intention or goal. The vision is the goal. We do respect input from players. Don't get me wrong. But the kind of input we respect is the kind that does not fit into any of the above categories, but rather the kind that would contribute to enhancing the vision.

To be blunt, this is not a democracy. You don't pay us a mandatory fee to play her. So even if the majority of players wants something, we technically STILL don't have to do it for you. We sometimes do though.

Thanks to all who play here knowing that.

Vetinari: I have noted before that you have a definite anti-authoritarian streak, Commander.Vimes: Sir?Vetinari: You seem to have retained this even though you are Authority.Vimes: Sir?Vetinari: That's practically Zen.

Avlis has never ever been a democracy. I have never ever seen a vote being administered involving a rule or a DMs position.

There is a form of democracy behind the scenes but not out in public or there would be chaos I believe. Also do you know how much administration and work that would be?

I would of voted half the playerbase and Team off the community over the years but that be counter productive. That's why we have a Team for, to take away that headache and responsibilities and leave the players to ROLEPLAY and have fun. It is also an online community which the whole truth sometimes is not on full show.

Take Sunscream's picture he posted, he hasn't given you the full picture, only showing you what he wants you too see and the message he wants to deliver.

Avlis has never been a democratic community and it has been like that for 15 years. Now being democratic suddenly fits the idea for a few people for thier goals.

I just want to go back to roleplaying my PC with my friends but I find all this very uncomfortable to log in.

That's my view and opinion.

Silk wrote:I don't know, I think flinging poo in a catapult could be pretty damn effective.I know if I was on the battlefield and I got hit by a pile of shit... I'd probably go home.

The quoted post shows Orleron's beliefs at one time as co founder of Avlis. To any sycophant trying to compare Micah to Orleron as far as right and hold over the world is concerned, I would be very wary of that route.

Xeo if instead of that image, which takes the place of me explaining the dangers a dictator may face, I were to give the whole truth then you would not be able to martyr yourself any longer as your ability to claim you were a good DM with any credence would be forever severed.

Sunscream wrote:The quoted post shows Orleron's beliefs at one time as co founder of Avlis. To any sycophant trying to compare Micah to Orleron as far as right and hold over the world is concerned, I would be very wary of that route.

Xeo if instead of that image, which takes the place of me explaining the dangers a dictator may face, I were to give the whole truth then you would not be able to martyr yourself any longer as your ability to claim you were a good DM with any credence would be forever severed.

I believed I was a good DM and course everyone is entailed to thier view and opinion. I believed I had good ideas and it seems some liked them. If only a handful like my DMing then that is a win win for me. Np one can please everyone, it's impossible.

I've not martyring myself, I cannot carry on being on the team for a multitude of reasons. Family, managing my life, stress levels. Now Avlis also fits into those reasons too because my spare time is very precious.

Take you for example, you are one of those reasons. Have an opinion, say what you believe but don't stamp on everyone in the process. If someone did what you are doing right now five years ago, you would condone it... Or I thought you would, perhaps you have changed. We all grow and change as a person. I might be wrong.

There is a better way of doing what you are doing at the moment and what I've seen so far, you really don't care at all who you are effecting. That's not the vision of Avlis I want to be a part of and it's not a safe environment, it's a toxic one.

So I don't see if as martyrdom, you can get that out of your mind please. I call it standing up for what you believe in but not trying to dump on others, it's just not nice... Over a game.

Silk wrote:I don't know, I think flinging poo in a catapult could be pretty damn effective.I know if I was on the battlefield and I got hit by a pile of shit... I'd probably go home.